Middle East: What an end of the PKK would mean for Kurds

Jennifer Holleis

DW

MARCH 8, 2025

Following the call by Abdullah Ocalan to disband the Kurdistan Workers' Party, PKK, and to lay down arms, Syrian affiliates and the PKK headquarters in Iraq remain ambivalent. What are their options?

Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq are uncertain about their future after PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan called for all forces to lay down arms.

Image: DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP/Getty Images

Kurds in the Middle East have been in a state of limbo since Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, gave his pioneering speech in late February.

In his historic address, he said, "Convene your congress and make a decision. All groups must lay down their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself."

While an official date for such a congressional meeting is yet to be announced, the PKK already stated on March 1 that they would comply. They also declared a unilateral ceasefire.

This could mark the beginning of the end of the PKK and their 40-year-old violent struggle for independence on Turkish territory.

However, until such an end of the PKK is confirmed, Ankara will continue to consider not only Turkey's PKK as a terrorist organization, but also the PKK headquarters in Iraq and affiliates in Syria.

Turkey expects all groups to dissolve, without exception.

In his speech, however, Ocalan did not specifically mention any of the Kurdish forces and administrations outside Turkey, although he did refer to ‘all groups,’ which could be interpreted as referring to Syrian affiliates also.

He also failed to offer an alternative roadmap for the around 35 million Kurds who remain the largest ethnic group without their own state.

The Kurds live in a vast territory, which is split across Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Armenia. While they share a common ethnic identity and are predominantly Sunni Muslims, they do not have cross-border representatives, common policies or a joint military defense unit.

PKK spokespeople in Iraq and Syria had different reactions to Ocalan's call.

Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the SDF, says that Ocalan's call does not apply to his group.

Image: Bernat Armangue/AP/dpa/picture alliance

Kurds in Iraq

Analysts widely agree that the PKK headquarters in northern Iraq will most likely follow Ocalan's call.

"Once the PKK's congress formally declares it's dissolution and renounces armed struggle, this decision would cover both southeast Anatolia in Turkey [where the Kurdish majority in Turkey live] and militants directly operating under the PKK leadership structure in north Iraq," Nigar Goksel, Turkey and Cyprus project director at the conflict-prevention organization International Crisis Group, told DW.

The president of the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region in Iraq's north, Nechirvan Barzani, has already urged the PKK to "commit to and implement this [Ocalan's] message."

Hopes are that an end of the armed fight between Turkey and the PKK in Iraq will not only end ongoing strikes by the Turkish military in the area, but eventually improve political and economic ties between Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey.

Furthermore, the PKK's dissolution would most likely also improve the political situation in Syria's northeast where Turkey and Kurdish forces have been fighting for years.

"If these groups [in Turkey and Iraq] fully disband and undergo a DDR process [disarmament, demobilization and reintegration], this will unlock unprecedented opportunities for good governance and stability in northern Syria as well as alter the balance of power across the country," Burcu Ozcelik, senior research fellow for Middle East Security at the London-based think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told DW.

It remains to be seen if or to what extent Syria's PKK-affiliates will continue their political roadmap.Image: Orhan Qereman/REUTERS

Kurds in Syria

Yet, both analysts highlight that the Kurdish forces in Syria don't see Ocalan's call as ultimately binding for themselves.

Kurdish forces consist of the Kurdish Syrian People's Protection Unit (YPG), who are at the core of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF.

According to Ozcelik, the YPG is organically and institutionally linked to the PKK, and it is unimaginable that Turkey would agree to the YPG’s survival as it currently stands.

However, Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the SDF, already said that the call to dissolve did not apply to his group.

"It is not related to us in Syria," he stated.

He still welcomed Ocalan's call.

"If there is peace in Turkey, that means there is no excuse to keep attacking us here in Syria," Abdi said.

"If the PKK genuinely and demonstrably lays down arms and disbands, meaning that the armed cadres physically hand over their weapons to state authorities as the process would demand, it will be the dawn of a new era," Ozcelik stated.

She also said, however, that this "will not mean that PKK-affiliates operating in northeastern Syria will now have free rein."

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raq's PKK headquarters are most likely to follow Abdullah Ocalan's call to dissolve.Image: Younes Mohammad/IMAGO

Is an end of the PKK a path to unity?

Ocalan's call for an end of the PKK coincides with an unprecedented situation in Damascus that arose after the fall of Syria's longtime dictator Bashar Assad in December.

Syria's new interim government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa has called on the Kurdish forces to integrate into the national army.

However, the Kurdish forces insist to operate as an individual unit within the army.

So far, the Syrian government has rejected this and also didn't invite the SDF to the country's first national dialogue conference in late February.

While it remains to be seen if, or to what extend the SDF might integrate, the focus of the Kurdish forces is "not on disarmament," Nigar Goksel told DW.

And yet, once the PKK dissolves, the links between the Kurdish forces in Syria and the PKK would effectively be severed, she added.

In turn, Burcu Ozcelik sees that Ocalan's call for an end of the PKK could actually help the Kurds in Syria to gain a political foothold.

"If the Syrian Democratic Forces is able to credibly distance itself from the PKK and its affiliates, and contest in the political space of the new Syria as a pro-democracy party through legal guarantees, it will open the path for political mobilization," Ozcelik said.

Jailed Kurdish PKK leader urges group to disarm and dissolve  02:07


DW's Aref Gabeau contributed to this article.

Edited by: Carla Bleiker


Jennifer Holleis Editor and political analyst specializing in the Middle East and North Africa.